A game that got off to a promising start since Clayton Kershaw suffered a sharp drop in the sixth inning on Tuesday night, the Dodger losing reliever Brusdar Graterol against a strained right hamstring just eight pitches into his 2024 debut and the Philadelphia Phillies rallying for three runs in an eventual 6-2 victory.
A crowd of 47,150 at Chavez Ravine saw the National League East-leading Phillies win for just the third time in 12 games, while the Dodgers had their three-game winning streak snapped and their NL West lead over San Diego was cut. for four games.
Kershaw, in his third start after shoulder surgery in November, gave up one earned run and five hits in 4 ⅔ innings, striking out five and walking none, the Phillies scoring their only run against the 36-year-old lefty on Kyle’s single Schwarber’s fifth-inning RBI.
Graterol, who missed the first four months of the season with a shoulder injury, took the lead to start the sixth with a 1-0 deficit and moved Bryce Harper to third before giving up a single to Alec Bohm .
But as he hit a 2-and-1 sinker to JT Realmuto, Graterol grabbed his right hamstring and fell in front of the mound in pain. Graterol had to be helped off the field, and his teammates consoled the desperate reliever when he reached the dugout.
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Brent Honeywell relieved Graterol and completed a walk to Realmuto before giving up an RBI single to Nick Castellanos, a walk-off single to Brandon Marsh and a two-out, two-run single to Edmundo Sosa for a 4-0 Philadelphia lead.
The Dodgers cut the deficit to 4-1 in the bottom of the sixth when Teoscar Hernández doubled and scored on Will Smith’s groundout. They scored two with one out in the seventh, but Phillies All-Star left-hander Matt Strahm struck out pinch-hitter Austin Barnes and got Shohei Ohtani to fly out to right.
Hernández’s 25th home run of the season, a 424-foot shot to center off right-hander Jeff Hoffman in the eighth, pulled the Dodgers to 4-2, but Sosa and Schwarber hit back-to-back solo homers off Honeywell in the ninth for a 6-2 lead. two.
Kershaw had a solid 2024 debut against San Francisco on July 25, giving up two runs and six hits, striking out six and walking two in four innings of a 6–4 victory, but regressed badly in his second start in San Diego. in July. 31, giving up seven runs – three earned – and six hits in 3 ⅓ innings of an 8-1 loss.
Kershaw failed to record a shutout for the first time in his 424 regular season appearances in 17 years. He averaged less than 90 mph on his fastball, a drop from his season debut, and induced just two strikes on the 41 pitches the Padres threw.
“The first one, I thought, was really good, the stuff was crisp and crisp,” coach Dave Roberts said before the game. “The second, not so clear in all aspects.”
The third – against one of the best lineups in baseball – erased the bitter taste of the second from Kershaw’s mouth and was much better than the first, Kershaw facing the minimum nine batters in three innings and giving up only a broken bat to Austin Hays, who was thrown out at second base to end the third.
Kershaw gave up singles to Trea Turner and Harper to put runners on first and third in the fourth, but he escaped the jam by striking out Bohm with a 74 mph curve in the dirt and getting Realmuto to ground out to third.
The Phillies created more traffic in the fifth when Hays doubled to left with one out and Marsh was hit by a pitch. Kershaw won a nine-pitch duel with Sosa, striking out the second baseman with an 83 mph split changeup.
But Schwarber, who struck out in his first two at-bats, threw a full-count slider that dropped in front of center fielder Kevin Kiermaier for an RBI single and a 1-0 Phillies lead. Right-hander Joe Kelly relieved Kershaw and got Turner to fly out to center.
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Kershaw threw 81 pitches, 55 for strikes, and induced 10 hits. His four-seam fastball averaged 90.4 mph, and he did a better job of mixing in his 86.2 mph sliders and 73.1 mph curveballs.
“As a competitor, you want to be great, you want to be perfect every time, but I don’t think that’s a realistic expectation,” Roberts said. “We’re just going to try to take the positives from each outing and keep building.”
Short heels
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, sidelined since June 16 with a rotator cuff strain, threw a 30-pitch bullpen session on Tuesday. The right-hander will travel with the team and pitch to hitters in Milwaukee next week, “and hopefully, if all goes well, we’ll continue to build from there.” Roberts said the Dodgers remain “hopeful” that Yamamoto, who went 6-2 with a 2.92 ERA in 14 starts, will return in September.
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This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
